US Bank Corp Published its Mortgage Home Loan Rates on January 20, 2014

Lately, US Bank Corp (NYSE: USB) has managed to keep its mortgage interest rates stable for a long period of time in comparison to every other mortgage lender operating in the US mortgage market. Running on the same route, the US based lender kept its benchmark 30 year fixed mortgage interest rates steady on January 20, 2014.

This Monday, the potential home owners can find the standard, long term, 30 year fixed rate mortgage home loan options being traded at an interest rate of 4.500% and carrying an annual percentage rate of 4.673%. However, the shorter, 15 year counterpart of the 30 year fixed rate mortgage home loan deals can be had at an interest rate of 3.500%, along with an annual return of 3.811% today. The customers can also find the shortest, 10 year fixed rate home loan schemes listed in the bank’s books against a lending rate of 3.375% and an APR yield of 3.823%.

The customers, who are troubled by the poor credit score of their past or are unable to comply with the heavy down payment requirements of the conventional home loan deals, can go for the FHA backed 30 year fixed rate mortgage deals, which are now traded at an interest cost of 4.375% and an APR yield of 4.879%. On the other hand, the shorter, 15 year FHA FRM home loans can be locked in at an interest cost of 4.000% and an APR yield of 4.565%.

The American lender also offers its best 30 year jumbo fixed rate home loans for the borrowers with expensive home financing needs, at an interest price of 4.625% and an APR yield of 4.777% today. The shorter, 15 year jumbo fixed rate mortgage loan packages can be locked in at an interest rate of 3.750% and an APR yield of 4.008%.

The VA versions of the 30 year fixed rate mortgage plans are now up for grabs at an interest cost of 4.500% and an APR yield of 4.846%. However, the short term, 15 year VA fixed rate home loan plans are coming out at a lending rate of 4.000% and an APR yield of 4.721%.

In the variable rate mortgage home loan division, the potential borrowers can find the best 3 year deals being traded at a starting interest rate of 2.250% and carrying an APR yield of 3.261%. On the other hand, the more flexible, 5 year adjustable rate mortgage home loan deals can be had at an interest price of 2.625% and an APR yield of 3.250% to start with.

Disclaimer: The advertised rates were submitted by each individual lender/broker on the date indicated. Rate/APR terms offered by advertisers may differ from those listed above based on the creditworthiness of the borrower and other differences between an individual loan and the loan criteria used for the quotes.

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For the initial few months, Apple’s first wearable, the Apple Watch was selling pretty well according to reports. However, latest data from market research company, Slice Intelligence states that the company’s wearable sales could have plunged by around 90 percent since its launch.

The company revealed some sales statistics about the Apple Watch sales from April to June along with a graph showing a steep decline in demand. According to the company, at the initial stage, there were about 40,000 sales per day. However, in the last few weeks, particularly around late June, this figure has declined to just 5000 per day. This marks a 90 percent decline in the daily sales of the Apple wearable.

The company reportedly sold around 1.5 million smartwatches in the opening weekend. From that around two thirds were for the entry level Apple Watch Sport edition. Less than 2,000 customers have bought the Apple Watch Gold Edition which costs $10,000.

So, it’s not surprising to see that the sales have been declining. However, the data from Slice Intelligence doesn’t show the whole picture. The company reportedly analyzes the shopping patterns of about 2.5 million users. The e-mail receipts from these buyers are analyzed to make such a report.

Another criticism lies in the fact that majority of the data gathered by the company seems to come from third party sellers. For example, Apple Insider reports that the company data on Fitbit wearable sales were mostly from sellers like Amazon, Best Buy and Target. So, it looks like the data comes from a number of such customers who rely on such retailers. However, these sellers don’t sell Apple Watch and majority of the initial buyers could have been enthusiasts who would have bought directly from the Apple online stores.

The data gathered is restricted to US only buyers which is yet another issue with the stats provided by the company. However, Apple’s products are known to sell pretty well in countries such as China, whose data has not been taken into account to draw this report. As a result, despite the steep decline shown by the data from Slice Intelligence, the actual figures could be better. The company is expected to sell anywhere from 15 million to 20 million Apple Watches in 2015 alone. Gartner expects total wearable sales in the year to be around 40 million which shows that Apple is still doing much better than competitors who have been in the market for the past couple of years.

Google’s Self Driving Car project which came from its Google X Labs recently made the news. The company, in a report, said that its tech equipped Lexus Autonomous driverless cars were involved in two separate accidents in the month of June.

Google has been reporting traffic incidences to the California’s Motor Department for the past few years. However, the data about accidents and other incidences were not publicly available, until two months ago. Google had to change its policy about making such data public after increased pressure from consumer organizations. As a result, it started reporting such incidences as well other details from April of 2015.

In the second month of reporting, the company revealed that both the accidents were minor and no one was injured. In fact, Google has added that in both the instances, human drivers were at fault. In the first incidence, the driverless Lexus was stopped at a red light. A driver from behind collided with Google’s car at a very slow speed (less than <1 mph). There was no reported damage from both the parties.

Even in the second accident, which occurred on June 18, the human driver in the other car was reportedly at fault. Here’s an excerpt from the company’s monthly report.

“A Google Lexus model autonomous vehicle (Google AV) was traveling northbound on California St. in Mountain View in autonomous mode and was stopped at a red light in the straight-only lane at the intersection of California St. and Bryant St. The lane to the left of the Google AV was a left-turn-only lane.”

“The vehicle waiting immediately behind the Google AV in the straight-only lane began to move forward when the green arrow left turn signal appeared (despite the signal for the straight-only lane remaining red) and collided with the rear bumper of the Google AV. The Google AV had been stopped for about 11 seconds at the time of impact. The other vehicle was traveling about 5 mph at the time of impact.”

In comparison, the self-driving car was involved in two accidents in the month of April and one accident in the month of May. In the past six years, the company’s self-driving cars have covered approximately 1.8 million miles of autonomous and manual driving. Till now, these cars have been involved in 14 minor accidents. According to the company, not once was the self-driving car the cause of the incidence.

Battery life has always been one area where smartphones have yet to make a significant breakthrough. All major tech companies are involved in the research and development of a better battery tech than existing lithium ion batteries and it looks like the Korean giant, Samsung has made a break through. In the Nature Journal, the company’s battery division reports that it has finally able to double the battery life of existing batteries through some innovative changes in design.

It has become a usual tradition for smartphone owners to keep their phones for charge every day. Sometimes, users have to charge it multiple times in one day. But this new tech promises to solve this problem by increasing the battery capacity of the existing batteries. Samsung researchers have reportedly managed to create a battery tech which doubles the capacity density of the battery.

Usually, lithium ion batteries come with graphite as anode inside. While graphite is quite stable and long lasting, it’s unable to meet the energy demands of the current generation. As a result, Samsung researchers replaced the traditional graphite with silicon anodes. Silicon proves as a very good replacement since it can hold much higher capacity of energy as compared to graphite.

This is not the first time someone has tried to use silicon inside lithium ion batteries to increase capacity. But silicon comes with its own set of problems, the most significant being the tendency to expand as much as 400 percent when fully charged. While it goes back to normal when discharged, it makes it possible for such batteries to be used in compact devices such as smartphones. However, to solve this issue, Samsung researchers have coated the silicon anodes with graphene which prevents such expansion.

“The graphene layers anchored onto the silicon surface accommodate the volume expansion of silicon via a sliding process between adjacent graphene layers,” says Samsung’s report. “When paired with a commercial lithium cobalt oxide cathode, the silicon carbide-free graphene coating allows the full cell to reach volumetric energy densities of 972 and 700 Wh l−1 at first and 200th cycle, respectively, 1.8 and 1.5 times higher than those of current commercial lithium-ion batteries.”

This tech is currently waiting for patent approval in a number of regions such as Europe, China, Korea and US. The company claims that it will most likely end up on commercial products such as its new age smartphones in the next three years.

It’s been just two months since Apple’s first wearable, the Apple Watch started selling in the market and there are already reports about some of the features of the next generation model of the device. The latest news comes via 9to5Mac which reports that the Second Generation Apple Watch could sport a camera on the bezel as well as an independent Wi-Fi chip among other features. At present, the watch has to rely on the connected phone’s Wi-Fi to access internet.

Fitting a camera on the next generation model will definitely be an interesting move from the Cupertino giant. However, this decision does have its advantages as well as disadvantages. For example, users could now take selfies and even make video calls with a camera on board. But, given the average battery life of the device, one cannot expect users to use it for a long time. A camera on board will drain battery life much faster than a regular model.

Also, smartwatches are not ideal devices to make or receive video calls, given that it will be hard for users to create a comfortable angle. But, it won’t be the first time a smartwatch maker has fitted a camera on its wearable. Samsung has already released camera equipped smartwatches in the market last year. Also, the next generation model is expected to come with an independent Wi-Fi chip, further reducing its reliance on the connected smartphone. At present, to update apps and other features, users have to pair their watches with an internet connected smartphone. However, the function is highly limited. Apple has designed the watch to use Wi-Fi primarily for creating and updating backups online.

Apple Watch users are reportedly happy with the battery life of their devices. However, its battery life is not up to the mark as compared to other competitors. Also, in case of heavy usage, the watch may not even last up to a day. But, the report says that the company, at present, is not looking to increase the battery on the device. So, the next generation could feature a similar battery life as the current version.

Given that the first generation Apple Watch is just two months old, the next version will probably debut only in 2016. Apple usually sticks to the tradition of unveiling a successor after every year, and if that’s the case, expects the new Apple Watch to debut sometime around Q2 2016.

HTC has announced in a statement made earlier today that the company has not contacted ASUS about any plans for acquisition. The company also added that it won’t be considering such an acquisition.

This statement comes after Jonney Shih, the current Chairman of ASUS said while talking to his shareholders that the company could consider taking over its fellow Taiwanese company, HTC. While ASUS made no formal bid/ offer for such an acquisition, the news made the headlines this weekend. This eventually forced HTC to release an official statement clearing things in this regard.

“We strongly deny the news,” the company wrote in the statement. “We didn’t contact Asusteck and will not consider the acquisition. As an international brand, HTC will continue to design world-class innovative smart devices through its pursuit of brilliance brand promise.”

HTC has been making smartphones for a long time, but still the company has not been able to make a break through. Despite developing and releasing premium smartphones with top-end features, the company’s sales have been disappointing as compared to competitors like Samsung and Apple. As a result, HTC has been struggling a bit in the past few financial quarters.

HTC also saw some setbacks this year. First, it was Peter Chou who stepped down from the CEO position to take the role of head of product development. Later, the company lost its head of design, Jonah Becker. Also, the company recently, lowered its second quarterly revenue forecast for the year from a range of $1.48 billion – $1.56 billion to $1.06 billion – $1.16 billion.

However, the company has made a few changes in the past few months to bring back its momentum. Firstly, co-founder Cher Wang became the Chairwoman of the company. Secondly, the company decided to diversify its product portfolio which mainly consisted of smartphones. For example, it released a brand new VR headset called as the Vive as well as a standalone camera called as the HTC Re camera.

On the other hand, ASUS has been growing steadily. The PC maker has shifted its focus on mobile devices in recent times, which has led to the release of many smartphones from the company. In fact, another PC maker turned smartphone manufacturer, Lenovo sold more phones than Pcs for the first time in the previous financial year. Acquiring a well-established, yet struggling company like HTC could give a boost to ASUS’s plans for its smartphone division.

However, after this statement made today, it looks like the HTC will continue to innovate as a standalone smartphone maker in the market.